Avengers: Battlefront
by AsherAnd
Summary: It hasn't been even a year since the events in New York, when a new enemy arises that the Avengers can not face on their own. New Avengers are hired and their ranks are expanded. The new Battlefront is pushed in to action immediately, but with rising tempers and hatred spreading, will they be able to cooperate in time to save earth? -Post Caging The Beast-
1. Awaken, Sekhmet

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Director Fury stared at the wall opposite his desk. He'd been at it for hours, desperately trying to seek solace from the hell that was going on just outside his door. He'd heard tell of Buddhist monks who could meditate for hours on end and completely shut the world out. The man sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn't afford such luxury. Not now. He stood and trudged over to the touch screen that dominated one of his walls. A simple voice command later and a live feed from the Bridge of the Helicarrier was playing out. Agents were bustling about, shouting orders at underlings and rushing files around. This was normal, after all, they were a world-renowned intelligence agency albeit one that most people without Federal Level security clearance had never heard of. His second-in-command, Maria Hill barked at one of her aides and sent the young man scurrying off, presumably to get her some more coffee. Fury felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward into his version of a smile. Agent Hill hunched back over the console and began typing in commands. Her eyes widened slightly and Fury frowned. She began shouting orders at everyone on deck. If he hadn't known better, he would have though that his normally calm, cool and collected deputy was frightened.

It was a good thing he knew better.

Maria pressed the bluetooth that sat over her ear and Fury's own buzzed. "Sir, she's awake." He felt a shudder run through his body and he nodded. "I'm on my way." The Director pushed open the heavy steel door that served as is sound-proof barrier from the rest of SHIELD and began the trek down the corridor.

He'd been prepared for this day. He'd had it marked on his calendar for almost a year, but he never thought it would actually come. Now that it had, he had to deal with the repercussions. The hallway was silent and the only sounds to be heard were those of his boots against the cold, metal floor. Fury was not one to be frightened of anything, really. He'd seen supposedly immortal regimes fall, gods be killed and had had several assassination attempts launched against him. Those had been different, though. He'd known the inevitable outcome of all of those situations and had been able to plan accordingly. No matter how much one prepared and rehearsed and practiced, one could never plan around the whims of an immortal.

Back in the early forties, SHIELD had made two mistakes. When the Tesseract had been in their possession, they'd let inexperienced scientists operate on it and ended up accidentally abducting a Jotun. They'd assumed the creature had been brought into being by the tesseract until the arrival of Thor when the human race found out that they were indeed not alone. Braoeyyn, the giantess, had been kept under wraps, taught english, and given SHIELD training until she was needed. That time was now.

The second, and possibly the largest had come a few years afterward. The peace-keeping agency had been searching for another supposedly lost artifact of the gods and had happened to stumble across Ra's Kopesh. Unfortunately, in picking it up, they'd summoned the war goddess Sekhmet and she'd not been all too happy about being ripped from her home in paradise. Not only that, but they'd also barred her from the Duat. She'd slaughtered nearly 50 people before she was subdued. She'd been sleeping for the past 65 years, and today was her waking day. Fury tried to suppress a shudder as he typed in the passcode for her holding cell. The bay doors slid open and he stepped inside, erasing all signs of apprehension from his person. His agents didn't need him to be cautious now. They need their fearless leader.

A dozen or so of the highest-ranking officers in the organization were gathered silently around a 10-by-7 foot glass cylinder staring at the woman inside. Even sitting down with her eyes closed, she was an impressive sight to behold. She, when stretched to her full height, would easily have been six feet tall. Her hair was pulled away from her face into a ponytail of thick dreadlocks, though a few had strayed now framed her face. She appeared to have no particular ethnicity, though if he had to guess, he would have said north African. She wore her guardsman's uniform which, though decades had passed, still seemed immaculate.

The goddess's eyes opened slowly, revealing golden irises. She began to get to her feet and the tension in the room instantly soared. Maria was by Fury's side in a second. "Sir, the Inhibitor collar is on, but the prototype may still be a little shaky. If she decides to break out-"

"Did Selvig work on it?" Maria nodded in the affirmative.

"Yes, sir."

"Then it'll work." Sekhmet wobbled to her feet, her legs trembling and she placed a hand on the glass, her head down. The goddess breathed out something, her voice raspy and low. When she received no answer, she repeated it, this time in Arabic. She gave a guttural growl and slammed a fist against the glass, causing the floor to vibrate.

"I said, WHERE AM I?" She snarled, revealing sharp teeth similar to those of a lion. No, exactly like those of a lion. She spoke with what sounded like an English accent. He supposed that was reasonable. She probably had learned English from the early exploiters of her country. Fury took a deep breath and stepped forward.

"Sekhmet bin Ra, you're in SHIELD Headquarters. You've been asleep for the past 65 years so you might-" The goddess raked the claws on her right hand down the glass and looked up.

"Mortal, you have till the count of one to release me." The room went silent.

"I'm afraid I can't do that." He saw heat waves begin to ripple around the Egyptian's cell and he swallowed the lump in his throat. The Inhibitor collar they'd developed for just this moment should stop her more…deadly powers from working. He trusted Eric Selvig and the collar was his brain child. It had been tested and tested again on the only being with similar power levels to Sekhmet: Thor. But even though it had worked on the brawny Asgardian, the woman in front of them was a different breed of immortal. She'd been conquering realms when Odin was in diapers and could kill the SHIELD Agents in the room with her with one fatal wave of her hand if she so wished.

The thing was, Fury desperately needed to add another powerhouse to the Avengers roster and she was the only one readily available.

"Mortal-"

"Fury."

"Excuse me?"

"My name is Director Fury. I'm the leader of the organization that has prevented the outside world from exploiting you and your family as weapons for the past few decades. Sekhmet, I know you're disoriented but-"

"You will address me by my full name and from the proper position." Fury could feel his patience wearing thin, but disrespecting the goddess could cause her immediate dislike and as much as he hated playing with fire, he needed her. So, the Director dropped to one knee, bent his head and began the title he'd forced all of his officers to learn.

"Sekhmet bin Ra, Queen of the Nile, Goddess of War. Mouth of the Desert, Eye of Ra, Peace be with you always, hear my plea." The goddess smirked and sat down cross-legged on the floor of her cell.

"Proceed." Fury launched into a recap of everything that had happened in the past decades, explaining how they'd been shut off from the Duat and how they would help her find her way back if she did them all a favor and joined the Avengers.

Sekhmet was silent for awhile, seeming to be lost in thought. She straightened her back and looked down at Nick Fury. "I assume this-" She ran a finger down the flat silver collar that encircled her neck . "-is to prevent me from killing you all?"

"No. You can still kill us, you just have the abilities of a low-level god. You will no longer be able to super-heat or shapeshift. You are, however, still capable of using simple war magic."

"Hm." The goddess clapped her hands together and stood. "That is all fine, Fury. I will help you wage war against you enemies if you, in turn, agree to send me back home when this trifle is over." The SHIELD Director rose and exhaled.

"Thank y-" She cut him off.

"Please do know that I always keep my promises, Comrade Fury." Her voice had changed and become suddenly clear, losing all of its hoarseness. "If one or any of your soldiers gets in the way of me completing my side of our bargain, I will not hesitate to kill them." Despite the heat radiating through the room, the Director shivered. "We are now bound to each other by the law of the gods. If either side is broken, the offending party will die. " The War goddess's golden eyes swept over the crowd below her. "That is all." She turned her back to them, as if dismissing them from her presence.

As Fury exited the stiflingly hot room, he heard Agent Hill fall into step beside him. "Sir, Why do I have the feeling that we just struck a deal with the Devil?"

"I'm afraid we just might have."


	2. The Gamer and the Giant

While Fury had insisted on begging gods for help, Natasha felt more at home bringing up one of her peers. She, like her fellow Avengers Hawkeye, had no powers. She was just very good at what she did. Her strikes were always deadly accurate and she never missed a target. At the end of the day, powers could fail, suits could malfunction, and gods could always be called home but her body was her's to control. As long as she worked hard and kept healthy, she couldn't fail.

The Black Widow walked down the eerily quiet corridors of the helicarrier. Most of the agents were either removing Sekhmet to her new room, crammed into the bridge, or out on various recon missions. The heels of her boots tapped quietly on the metal floors as she made her way to conference room 2-b. Three agents were waiting there for her with baited breath, eager to find out which one of them had made it into Fury's inner circle.

Alright, she doubted they were all that excited. Becoming an Avenger was even more dangerous than being a SHIELD Agent. Some would find that hard to believe. Natasha herself at one point had thought nothing was more difficult or taxing than being a member of an international agency that wasn't supposed to exist. She'd been wrong, of course. There was nothing like fighting Norse gods and aliens to give you a wake up call.

She turned a final corridor and walked directly toward the sliding glass doors that separated the conference room from the hall outside. Three agents, all blond and blue-eyed were standing in various parts of the chamber, all facing away from each other. Natasha rolled her eyes subtly. The Council had been on Fury to add an aesthetic edge to the team: some one the public would support. Never mind that they supported Stark. The Council needed someone reliable, so they'd picked the three most talented, most 'attractive' agents on the ship and tested them nonstop over the past four weeks. The Widow would admit they had talent.

Special Agents Codenamed Firestarter and Manic had been with the organization since the age of 18 and were at the top of both of their divisions, prime Avengers material. They both had high IQs, nearing genius level, and they were strong, stoic creatures. The third man, however seemed pathetic at best. His uniform was wrinkled and his hair was a mess. As far as Natasha could tell, he was hunched over playing a video game.

"Adam Wheatley?"

The man - No, Boy. He couldn't be called a man. He looked fresh out of high school. He probably couldn't have grown a beard if he tried. - playing the game looked up and pulled out an ear bed. "Huh?" He grunted. Natasha forced herself to swallow a biting remark.

"Adam. Wheatly?" She called again, her voice holding a small note of strain.

The boy raised an arm. "Here." The Widow tossed a packet onto the table containing the mission statement, information about the Initiative and the enemy they were facing.

"Welcome to the Avengers." She said. "There's a meeting tomorrow morning at Nine on the bridge. Be there." As Natasha turned to leave, she could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. The two unchosen agents were glaring daggers at their young coworker, who'd simply shrugged and gone back to playing Galaga is if it were his job.

Normally, she would have taken his game and snapped it in half, but he wasn't the only new member she had to meet today. Down the hall, where the temperature actually had dropped a whole fifty degrees, a young woman was waiting.

She had been SHIELD's first mistake in the early thirties, and she couldn't exactly be called a woman. Not when she was 7'7, 283 pounds and blue. No, the proper term would have been Giantess, for she was. As Natasha entered the dimly lit bedroom, she was once again struck by the irony of the Jotuness's situation. Braoeyyn was easily the largest person on the helicarrier -save Bruce, when he was angry- and was a highly trained warrior. A giant long-staffed battle axe sat beside her and the spy knew the blue girl could use it. She'd seen her in training once before. As strong and intimidating as she was, though, Brae was quiet and reserved, slightly shy around strangers. She was soft-spoken and had the tendency to stutter a little bit.

She was still a child in Frost Giant terms, but had been robbed of her childhood when she'd been summoned from Jotunheim accidentally nearly seventy years ago.

"U-um, S-so Director Fury told me you, like, wanted me on that team thing y'all do?" She sounded like an American teenager. Despite her fearsome appearance, Brae had totally assimilated into the culture of a country she'd never experienced on the ground. Her thick white hair was twisted into a bun, and she wore a loose belted sweater dress. If Natasha hadn't known better, she would have sworn the girl was wearing Uggs.

The Black Widow nodded and offered the giantess a small, reassuring smile. Faked, of course. "Yes, he believes you're ready. You've bee up here for a bit too long, don't you think?" the blue woman shifted uncomfortably on her bed and looked down. She hardly ever left her room except to train and occasionally eat.

"I…I dunno…" She twirled a loose strand of hair around a well-manicured fingernail and looked toward the ceiling. "I mean, what if people…you know…" Brae leaned in and whispered. "What if they stare?" The Widow bit back a sigh. She wasn't one for pep talks, and she was exhausted. She'd just come off a high-profile mission, and all she wanted to do was sleep.

"Brae, You're a giant. No matter where you go, or what you do, people are going to stare." The young woman's face fell, but before she could collapse into tears or something, Natasha plowed on. "But you should let them! Weren't you a lady of something back on your world?"

"Princess…" Brae moaned sadly. The Widow gave another encouraging smile and patted her shoulder. All this enthusiasm was, of course, faked. Fury needed the Jotun, though, and get her he would.

" Princess! Act like one! Get out there and show those _humans _who ruled over Jotunheim for nearly a century.

The giant blue girl was thumbing tears away from her eyes. "Actually, I didn't rule. I was fifth in line for-" But Natasha was already halfway down the hall. "See you tomorrow, bright and early for the team meeting!" After she heard an okay, the master assassin relaxed. Her cheeks ached from smiling and she felt like shooting something. She honestly didn't know how she was going to deal with these people once they were on the team


	3. Enter: The Villains

Her name had been Cheyenne Jones. Had been, because the second she left home, she gave up all rights to it. That name held undeserved hope, hope that Warbringer had since abandoned. Someone once told her that Cheyenne meant 'The Rising Sun'. Hm. Not to be a downer, but she couldn't see anything particularly sunny about her situation.

Her parents had both been geologists, and successful ones at that. They'd poured years of their lives into their research, going over every minute little detail until they found the mineral they were looking for, or proof that there was a chemical in a tub of soil. They were busy people, far too busy to have a child. At the age of five, Cheyenne had gone from being their child, to becoming an obligation.

She'd always suspected they didn't love her. Of course, they didn't come right out and say it. They did try, or at least, her mother did. She respected her for that. They bought her every toy she could have wanted, every little trivial bauble they thought she might like. Expensive shoes and designer dresses they knew she'd mess up. They exerted so much energy trying to please her, to get her to show one little ounce of attachment to them.

Her father was the first to give up. After all, it wasn't his fault his daughter was an apathetic little freak. He had bigger fish to fry. His job was in jeopardy, and his boss was on his ass day in and day out about making a breakthrough. What, did he think he could just pull a rare gem out of his pocket? No, let his wife deal with the girl. He had to work.

Her mother held out a bit longer, even resorted to pleading with her. "Be a good girl, Cheyenne, alright?" She'd say, a hand pressed to her daughter's pale cheek. "Be a good girl for Mommy."

And she tried. She did honestly try to be a good girl. She didn't ask Daddy why he stopped going to work, or what the strange smelling liquid in the brown bottles was. She didn't ask Mommy about the marks on her face after Daddy had a few to many of those bottles. She didn't tell her teachers when Daddy started to hit Mommy, and she didn't cry when he came after her. She sat quietly and endured the blows.

Like a good little girl.

Sometimes, though, being good wasn't good enough.

IT had happened when her mother was locked in a screaming match with her father. Cheyenne never had liked loud noises. They terrified her, made her cower behind couches and in corners. She remembered they were screaming about her. Her father wanted to give her up for adoption, or leave her at the hospital. Mercy Drop her. Her mother wouldn't have it, though. She did sometimes protect her daughter when her father came after her. "You know they won't take her, Adam! They don't take our kind!" Our Kind. At that point, she hadn't ever seen her parents use their abilities, and she couldn't have known. Mutants had just been exposed to the public when she was coming up.

Her mother had been chopping vegetables when IT happened, that much she remembered. That was, after all, what caused IT to happen. Their voices kept getting louder and louder, escalating until Cheyenne's ears were ringing. She tried to go to her safe place, but even their she could hear their awful voices. Her mother's shrieking and her father's curses.

He'd lifted a hand to strike his wife across the face-

That was the last thing she saw before the red filled her vision and blood pounded in her ears.

When the haze cleared, every knife in the kitchen, including the one that had been in her mothers hand, was imbedded in Adam Jones's torso, pinning him to the floor. The metal appliances were twisted out of shape and the stainless steel refrigerator's doors had been ripped off to form a wall in front of her mother.

"Cheyenne..." Her mother's voice was calm, but hysteria ate at the edges. She sounded as if she were trying to soothe a wild animal. "Cheyenne, I need you to back up..." And she did back up. All the way to the front door and out onto the street.

"Cheyenne! Come back!" But she wouldn't. She would never come back. Her small feet slapped against the wet pavement as she ran away from home in the rain, her only clothes, the pajamas on her back. She hadn't even grabbed any shoes.

"CHEYENNE!" No, she'd given up rights to that name. She was not the Rising Sun.

* * *

_'I was Six then. And that was eight years ago.'_ Warbringer thought to the man across from her as she lit up a cigarette. He shook his head, a grin of disbelief spreading across his face.

"Waiiiiit, waitwaitwait. Ok. So, you want me to believe you ran away from home at age six after killin' your daddy, and you've been hiding out in the sewers under New York this whole time?" He laughed and leaned back in his chair. "Honey, you are a hoot." Warbringer closed her eyes, trying to keep her irritation in check. While most people might have found his southern drawl charming, she found it made her want to sever his vocal chords.

_'Not the whole time. I did a few odd jobs here and there. Killed a mob boss, stole some money. Sent a message. Sometimes if I was lucky, they'd actually pay me like they said they would.'_

"And if you weren't?" Warbringer looked up at him, her crimson eyes cold. She'd been told before that her eyes held the look o one who'd seen much destruction. She supposed that was true. She'd often been the cause of it. The young girl exhaled a cloud of smoke directly into Trickshot's face.

_'Then I killed them and took my pay anyway.'_ He coughed and waved the fumes away from his eyes.

"You really shouldn't smoke, you know. You're-"

"If say too young, I kill." She spoke aloud this time, her voice raspy and cold from unuse. Her English was fragmented, she knew, but the fewer words she had to use, the better. She'd found Trickshot hanging around Horus's base two days ago, and a brief mental search showed that he was, indeed, an ally of the Falcon god. The girl had come in from the cold, looking for a place to stay for awhile. Her employer's room was still rented out for two months, so she figured she'd just hunker down until spring. That is, at least, what she thought she'd be doing. It turned out that the suite was already occupied by Trickshot.

He was, apparently, the only one who'd known about Horus's other allies and had recognized her the second she came through the door. Hell, he even called her by name- code name, that is. No one knew her real one. The Ex-SHIELD Agent had let her sleep there, and had even bothered to feed her. Apparently, Horus had amassed a small fortune in the three weeks he walked the earth. How, they didn't know, but people like them weren't in the habit of questioning money when it was shoved in their face.

Trick, like Warbringer, was a mutant but his abilities lay more on the physical side of the power spectrum. He was in peak physical condition, for one thing. He didn't feel fatigue, he never got hungry or cold, hell the man didn't even sweat! His senses also worked better than a normal humans, making him totally aware of his surroundings at all times. The man's main ability, however, was by far the most impressive. He had the ability to mental calculate the path and object would take from any angle he threw it from in nanoseconds. This not only allowed him to essentially see when and where his opponents were going to attack, but also allowed him to retaliate with deadly accuracy.

Their abilities were the reason's why they'd been hired by Horus. They'd never seen their boss, they just knew that he needed certain jobs done, and those jobs often payed very, very well. What little they did know about their boss consisted of his name and the fact that the man thought he was a god, or some crap like that. The ancient gods had been fiction, in Warbringer's opinion, but she wasn't about to bite the hand that fed her.

Horus supposedly had some bone to pick with some chick named Sekhmet who'd wronged him. The woman probably owed him some money. Anyway, Horus needed her and her friends taken care of, so he'd started gathering super-powered rejects of society and making them his minions. That was all fine with Warbringer. She'd do anything for a price. Trickshot was a harder nut to crack, though. He wasn't one to go along with hair-brained schemes if he knew they weren't going to pay off, so if he was still with the group, then it must have been worth something.

Warbringer yawned and stretched. Trick watched her and took another sip of his drink. "Weren't we s'posed ta meet Horus here or sum'in?"

"Yes, you were or something." The cold, dry voice came from over Warbringer's shoulder. Out of habit, she began to form magnetic fields, but was stopped with a look from Trickshot. A thin, pale, blonde man with striking silver eyes sat down at the table.

"Hey, Horus." Trick greeted, fiddling uncomfortably with the buttons on his shirt. Warbringer, as usual, said nothing. There was an aura of power about the powered being beside her that set her nerves on edge. He could have been any man. His hair looked slightly unkempt and brushed against his shoulder. He wore dark clothes, a black turtlenecked sweater that was two sizes too big and loose black pants. A day-old beard had begun to show and a wedding band decorated his ring finger.

"Greetings mortal." He appeared less than interested in the what the mortal had to say. Their first mission would be approaching soon.

"Sekhmet has awoken a little bit earlier than originally planned, so our plans, in turn, have shifted." He said, his voice low. "It has come to my attention that the Asgardians Thor and Loki-" He spat the last name out as if it were poison on his tongue. "-Plan on joining the Avengers once more. I need you to stop them."

"By doin' whut?" Trickshot question, his southern drawl seeming to irritate the Egyptian man further.

"I don't care! Kill them! Crash the Helicarrier! Rip them in half! Just stop them from getting to Sekhmet and her allies!" And with that, Horus disappeared, leaving three falcon feathers in his wake. Warbringer rolled her eyes.

Trick put his hat back on his head and stood. "My thoughts exactly, come on. We got our orders."

* * *

So...R&R, maybe?


End file.
